Restorative Practices in Guam
During the past two decades, Inafa’ Maolek Mediation Center in Guam has used restorative justice to help offenders understand the consequences of their actions and offer amends to the people who suffered from the behaviour. Founder and executive director Attorney Pat Wolff describes its two primary services as direct mediation and conflict resolution training for students and adults.
One project presents workshops for students engaged in peer mediation and other issues of youth-related conflict, with the aim of reducing violence in Guam's schools. The vast majority of participating peer mediators have reported significantly increased knowledge, skills and confidence in conducting mediation. School administrators, coordinators, teachers and aides, and parent volunteers have also become more aware of alternative conflict resolution’s viability in schools.
Inafa’ Maolek also organizes conferences for the law enforcement and legal communities. Although some prosecutors have questioned the concept’s viability for serious crimes, many conference participants have endorsed the idea of implementing restorative justice in the island community. Victim advocates support making mediation available to those victims who request it. Furthermore, Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson says that incorporating the concept of restorative justice into current legal structures would not be difficult, since the only costs would be for training justice personnel. She hopes that as a result, she would realize a decrease in the number of juvenile cases in her court.
In the following paragraphs, Wolff describes Inafa’ Maolek’s programmes and work:
First, our restorative justice awareness presentations now connect remarkably well with audiences because our Peace Theatre wing has developed a restorative justice skit that portrays student misbehaviour (vandalism) on the school level with a restorative response. Although Peace Theatre skits on such topics as bullying, dating violence, sexual harassment, and racial-ethnic conflict have been our hallmark over the past six years, it is only in summer 2003 that we developed the restorative justice skit.
Second, Inafa’ Maolek’s restorative justice services have a youthful appearance. Whenever we are asked to do a restorative justice intervention (victim-offender dialogue, restorative group conference or peacemaking circle) with respect to an offence involving a teen offender or victim, we staff our mediation/facilitation panel with a youthful peacemaker. Many of those we have trained for this purpose are our outstanding high school peer mediators who were selected for “Advanced Peer Mediation Training”, in which they learn restorative justice skills.
Third, many of our mediator volunteers (none of whom are paid) consider their involvement in Inafa’ Maolek (formerly “Christian Conciliation Service”) an outreach ministry. Inafa’ Maolek has a standing committee on “Biblical and Faith-Based Models of Conflict Resolution”, to help us retain focus on this value. I personally began correspondence with Chuck Colson when I was at Temple Law School (1972-1975) when he began Prison Fellowship after his release from prison, and I helped start Prison Fellowship on Guam. Therefore, we are keenly interested in issues of apology, forgiveness and reconciliation.
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Sources for this article include:
www.uog.edu/cals/site/pubs/99drugstudy.pdf
www.spc.org.nc/youth/PYS_2005/guam.htm
www.kuam.com/modules/article-printable.aspx?headline=4220
www.guampdn.com/news/stories/20031207/localnews/777399.html
www.kuam.com/modules/article-printable.aspx?headline=8785
Jonathan Morton
April 2004
